Thursday, 30 June 2016

India needs efficient healthcare system for overall development

Dr. Devendra
Kothari

Population and
Development Analyst

Forum for
Population Action

Happy Doctors’ Day
2016!

"At the moment, India is on the edge and it can take
two routes. It can take a route of investing in health and investing in its
people and creating a thriving and flourishing future for India which has a
part to play in world affairs or it can do what it is doing now and ignore
health in which case it will see epidemics sweep across the country creating an
unsustainable future and destroying national security.”

Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton.

The
world's most revered medical journal - The Lancet - has censured severely
Government of India for ignoring health sector and has warned that India is on
the “verge of a collapse under the weight of its own ill health”. In an
exclusive interview to Times of India, Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton said
that failing to combat non communicable diseases like diabetes and heart
disease and reduce maternal and child health will cost India's health system
and social care "enormously making India collapse”. [1]

Horton’s comments have stirred the ire of Indian health officials, who
called them "derogatory" and "not borne out by evidence. The Ministry of Health and Family
Planning sent a strong worded letter to
him and noted that “India has moved from strength to strength and some recent
initiatives will ensure improved outcomes for the most vulnerable”. The letter added
that the country has made great strides in reducing infant and maternal
mortality through its immunization programs as well as increased efforts to
control drug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV. [2]

No doubt, in recent years, India
has managed to control communicable diseases like malaria, cholera and polio.
However, the nation now has to deal with a new breed of lifestyle diseases like
diabetes and cardiovascular ailments. Coupled with a sedentary urban lifestyle,
increased alcohol consumption and smoking, the urban youth are particularly
prone to the aforementioned lifestyle diseases. In addition, large health disparities between states, between rural and urban
populations, and across social classes persist. Further, a large proportion of
the population is impoverished because of high out-of-pocket health-care
expenditures and suffers the adverse consequences of poor quality of care.

Healthcare in India
is a big mish mash of great achievements as well as miserable failures. On one
hand, we have medical tourism and cutting edge equipment as well as technology
and the other we have kids dying of undernourishment and people with treatable
conditions. In other words, despite substantial
improvements in some health indicators in the past couple of decades, India
contributes disproportionately to the global burden of disease, with health
indicators that compare unfavorably with other middle-income countries and
India's regional neighbors. Known as the diabetes
capital of the world, for example, India has about 70 million people with diabetes, which makes a
significant proportion of working population. Even its South Asian neighbors
like Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have fewer diabetics. Only
Pakistan fares worse. One can easily prevent diabetes by effectively
controlling its various risk factors such as smoking, obesity and inactive lifestyle.

India has neglected its health care, as per the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF). According to the latest Human Capital Index,
released by WEF in June 2016, India ranked low at 105th position globally on
the Index, which measures countries' ability to nurture, develop and deploy human
capital for economic development. Finland topped the list. India ranks much
below China's 71st position while Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka are also
placed higher on the index. Giving India 105th rank out of the total 130
countries, WEF said the country has optimized just 57 per cent of its human
capital endowment - placing it in the top of the bottom quartile of the index. Among
BRICS countries, India is ranked lowest as against Russia's 28th, China's 71st,
Brazil's 83rd and South Africa's 88th. It is interesting to note
that India was ranked 100th last year out of total 124 countries.

The post argues that India needs an effective healthcare
system, which addresses both acute and chronic
health-care. Also, it must offer choice of care that is rational, accessible,
and of good quality. For this, India needs to “adopt
an integrated national health-care system built around a strong public-primary
care system with a clearly articulated supportive role for the private and
indigenous sectors”, as argued by the researchers in their paper published in The Lancet. [3]
In addition, India has to establish effective regulatory mechanisms to monitor the cost and quality
of healthcare system.

Despite rapid economic growth over the past two
decades, successive union governments have failed to invest generously in
health. Most of the challenges facing India’s health system can be attributed
to underinvestment and the inefficient use of resources, as argued by Dr. Prabhat
Jha of the Centre for Global Health Research, University of Toronto. [4] Further, the promise of universal health coverage
will remain unfulfilled unless health is prioritised, as noted by Dr. K. Srinath Reddy, President of the Public
Health Foundation of India. [5]
In addition, an inadequate number of
doctors and a poor network of public hospitals, coupled with bureaucratic
bungling, means India often struggles to spend even its allocated budgets.

Asia's third-largest economy
spends around 1 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public health,
compared with 3 per cent in China and 8.3 per cent in the United States. (Indian
states manage their health budgets separately.) As a result, the per capita spending
rates are extremely low at US $ 109 (in Purchase Power Parity terms) as
compared to the USA ($7,285) and Brazil ($837). The global figure is US$
863 (WHO World Health Statistics 2010). As such, there is an urgent
need to increase the budgetary allocation for health.

With government expenditure
on health as a percentage of GDP stagnant or falling over the years and the
rise of unregulated private healthcare sector based on the profit motive, the
poor are left with fewer options than before to access health care services. Most
healthcare expenses in India are paid out of pocket by patients and their
families, rather than through insurance. This has led many households to incur
Catastrophic Health Expenditure (CHE) which can be defined as health
expenditure that threatens a household's capacity to maintain a basic standard
of living. One study found that over 35 per cent of poor Indian households
incur CHE and this reflects the detrimental state in which Indian healthcare
system is at the moment.[6] As per Dr.
Reddy, Indian health system allows 63 million of its people to sink into poverty each
year as a result of unaffordable health care costs. That could be reason, why Lancet's editor-in-chief Richard Horton has warned that India is on the
“verge of a collapse under the weight of its own ill health”.

The healthcare
insurance is slowly picking up pace in India. But the pace of increase is very
slow. According
to an Indian government study about 17 per cent of India's population had some
form of health insurance in 2014. Government
or public healthcare is free for those below the poverty line in many States of
India, but there is a question of quality. The
NSSO survey (released in April 2016) found
that people rely more on private hospitals, with over 70 per cent spells
of ailment (72% in rural areas and 79% in urban areas) being treated in the
private sector. As such, government has to expand insurance coverage. Plans
are currently being formulated for the development of a universal health care system in
India, which would provide health coverage through “national health assurance”,
as per the draft National Health Policy (NHP) 2015. Some community
health insurance schemes targeting poor families in different states are
showing encouraging trends. The governmental agencies need to expedite its role
to play a more active role in facilitating and ensuring health insurance
coverage for people, particularly the poor.

In addition, there is an
urgent need to develop an effective healthcare delivery system, which addresses
both communicable and non-communicable healthcare
needs. For this, India needs to adopt an integrated national
healthcare system built around a strong public primary care system with a
clearly articulated supportive role for the private and indigenous sectors, as
noted earlier. Now question arises how to achieve this?

A major barrier to service delivery is the severe
shortage of qualified health care personnel. Although there are around 400
Indian medical colleges with an annual intake of 52,000 students, there are
shortages of both generalist and specialist doctors, which are aggravated by
urban concentration and emigration, noted by Dr. Reddy. Shortfalls of properly
trained nurses and allied health professionals are even more acute.

Recently, GoI has taken steps to address the problem of
shortage of medical professionals. The
Medical Council of India, responsible for medical education, is set to be
replaced by a Medical Education Commission as per the Niti Aayog Panel
(formerly Planning Commission). The panel has framed the detailed guidelines to
ensure a wider talent pool to bridge shortages of skilled health workers and
address a major hurdle in meeting growing quality healthcare needs.

How to provide health care services on ground? The draft National Health Policy 2015, which provides a broad roadmap for health system reforms, calls for
strengthening primary care services to provide comprehensive care for several
health conditions including non-communicable diseases. Further, continuity of care would be ensured
through linkages with secondary and tertiary care facilities. Both public and
private sector providers would be engaged to deliver the service package, which
would be paid for by the government-funded health insurance schemes, as noted
by the draft NHP.

No doubt, the draft NHP 2015 is an improvement over its predecessors of
1985 and 2002. However, it does not “provide a more concrete road map with
doable timetables and practicable end-points”, as argued by the Forum for
Medical Ethics Society. [7] Looking to the ground realities, we suggest
the following broad interventions to provide healthcare services (details will
be worked out later).

Firstly, there is an urgent need to reevaluate the existing public
primary healthcare system. Presently there are about 23,100 Primary Health
Centres (PHCs) in India. They were established to provide preventive and
promotive health care with special reference to maternal and child health as
well as family planning services. However, they have gradually become clinical
centres. There is an urgent need to concentrate on reproductive health
(maternal and child health and family planning).

Although there has been progress with child and maternal mortality,
India has the highest number of child and new born as well as maternal deaths
in the world. Two
million children still die every year due to preventable causes. The World Bank estimates that the prevalence of underweight children
in India is among the highest in the worldwith
dire consequences for productivity and economic growth. [8] Further, winner of the 2015 Nobel
Prize in Economics Prof. Angus Deaton, who spent a considerable amount of time
working on ‘stunting’ among Indian children, concluded that widespread growth
faltering was a human development disaster as height reflected early life
nutrition which helps brains to grow. [9]In addition
issue of unwanted fertility is very serous one. India’s population has grown from 846 million in
1991 to 1210 million in 2011- that is by 364 million in the twenty
years, and is still growing by around 17 to 18 million every year. Current population growth is mainly
fuelled by unwanted fertility. More than four in ten pregnancies are
unintended/unplanned or simply unwanted by the women who experience them and
half or more of these pregnancies result in births that spur continued
population growth. Today 26.5 million babies are
born each year and out
of this about 6 million births could be classified as unwanted or unplanned. [10]
The consequences of unintended pregnancy are serious, slowing down the process
of socio-economic development as well as process of change, and is being
reflected in widespread hunger, poor health, poverty, under educated labour
force, unemployment, regressing governance as well as increasing scarcity
of basic resources like food, water and space despite concerted developmental
efforts since 1991.

As such, existing Primary
Health Centre should be the cornerstone of reproductive health services. Effective reproductive health practice requires
skillfully combining a number of theoretical models and frameworks to support
systems addressing the health needs of women, children, and families.Future improvements in RH should be built
on this legacy but it will come only from a 'paradigm shift' in primary health
practice, as noted by Dr.
Starfield in her recent paper entitled “Politics, primary healthcare and health: was
Virchow right?” . She writes further, “primary
healthcare provides a considerable contribution in reducing the adverse impact
of social inequalities in health”. [11]

Secondly, the general medical/clinical
care will be provided in a given jurisdiction by the General practitioners
(GPs) both in rural and urban areas. In the medical profession, ageneral practitioneris
a trained medical doctor who treats all common
medical conditions both acute and chronic
illnesses and refer patients to hospitals and other medical services for
urgent and specialist treatment. They focus on the health of the whole person
combining physical, psychological and social aspects of care. Also, GPs may be routinely involved in
pre-hospital emergency care, community hospital care and performing
low-complexity surgical procedures. The
government may provide some basic facilities like space, essential equipments,
etc. to run the services. The contract is (re)negotiated every 5
years. The units will be fully computerized, that is, with computer-based
patient records. GPs will be the corner stone of Indian healthcare system at
the bottom in the proposed framework.

The secondary healthcarewill be provided by a specialist or
facility at the District/Tehsil level hospitals or Community Health Centers
upon referral by a primarycarephysician
including GP and that requires more specialized knowledge, skill, or equipment.

There has been mention of public-private
partnerships for tertiary care in the NHP 2015, but this has yet to take
concrete shape by imposing pubic duties on private professionals and hospitals.
In our proposed model, most of the tertiary care will be taken care by the
private sector, and referred cases will be paid by the public exchequer or
through insurance. Recently, GOI has decided to invest to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore in 10
institutes of medical sciences (Like AIIMS). According to
Ministry of Health and Family Planning setting
up of these “institutes
would address regional imbalances in availability of
affordable and reliable tertiary health care services”. In addition, GoI would
spend a very large amount as recurring expenses to run these institutes. I think such amount could be spent as subsidy
to help poor and middle class patients to avail tertiary care at the private hospitals

Lastly, the disease
profile is changing rapidly in India. Modern science through improved
sanitation, vaccination, and antibiotics, and medical attention has eliminated
the threat of death from most infectious diseases. However, the World health
organization has identified India as one of the nations that is going to have
most of the lifestyle disorders in the near future. Nowadays, not only are
lifestyle disorders becoming more common, but they are also affecting younger
population. The population at risk shifts from 40+ to may be 30+ or even
younger. Already considered the diabetes capital of the world, India now
appears headed towards gaining another dubious distinction of becoming the
lifestyle-related disease capital as well. A study conducted jointly by the All
India Institute of Medical Sciences and Max Hospital shows the incidence of
hypertension, obesity and heart disease is increasing at an alarming rate,
especially in the young, urban population. As such, effective public health
measures are urgently needed to promote physical activity.

In addition to
sports, yoga needs to be promoted as a non-sectarian wellness initiative. On
the occasion of the second International Yoga Day, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has done well to highlight the non-sectarian character of yoga. Emphasizing
that yoga was not religious in nature; he asserted that the traditional
practice was even meant for atheists. Moreover, he described yoga as an
instrument that provided health assurance with zero spending. A mass movement
that promotes yoga can be one way of following the dictum that prevention of
ill health is better than cure.

TheNational Cadet Corpsis theIndian Military cadet corps and it is open to school and college
students on voluntary basis. Now few schools and colleges are continuing with this
activity. The cadets have no liability for active military service once they
complete their course but it helps in grooming the youth of the country into
disciplined and healthy citizens. The Government of India must rethink about reintroducing
it in all the schools and colleges on
the voluntary basis.

Many more such initiatives need
to be facilitated. All these can and
should be used to tackle lifestyle diseases especially obesity and diabetes. This in turn
can help the country save millions of rupees that are lost to early onset of
illnesses among people. But such initiatives cannot become a mass movement if
any of it is made mandatory and forcibly pushed down the throats of people,
schools or colleges. The challenge
of promoting physical activity is as much the responsibility of government, as
of the people. And India must take it seriously.

In conclusion, most Indians, who pride themselves on being part of the
world’s fasted growing economy, “miss a heartbeat when they read about India’s
grossly inadequate healthcare infrastructure”. [12]
Not enough hospital beds (less than nine
for 10,000 patients). Not enough doctors (just seven per 10,000 patients). Not
enough medicines. Not enough preventive healthcares. Despite some impressive gains, India’s health
continues to lag behind that of many of its Asian neighbors. Basic services
like water, sanitation and sewage systems at best remained patchy barring some
larger towns, and that may be the main cause of communicable diseases.

No doubt, Indians deserves
better healthcare.
For this, India needs to re-define its vision for healthcare. The above discussions
provides broad picture to revamp the existing healthcare system to make it pro
people especially pro poor. However,
this
needs a bigger mindshare of the healthcare planners. The plan must also focus
on fixing issues of providing clean safe water. In our zest to build toilets as
part of Swacchh Bharat campaign it is essential not to forget that we also need
a robust sewage system that works and is built to last. In addition, any plan to revamp the
healthcare must rely on appropriate induction of technology. Today, digital
technology, electronic health records, wearable sensors make it possible to
remotely deliver healthcare and these must be part of the healthcare plan.

As per WHO report, India is fast
turning as the world capital of lifestyle diseases, as noted earlier. Just to give a
number, there are some 70 million diabetics currently and another 70-80 million
who will get it in the next 5 years in India and plenty will not get diagnosed.
The abnormal thyroid prevalence in India is over 8 per cent. These are
significant numbers that burden human productivity and have an impact on the
national economy.

Prime Minister Modi is leading from
the front. He is a leader with immense energy and commitments to the people. He
must take concrete steps that “create an entitlement for all citizens to
equitable, high quality services”. Otherwise it will defeat his development
agenda.

In
an interview to Times Now on June 27, 2016, PM Modi said: My development
parameter is simple: how the poorest of the poor benefit from development. The
poor is the central focus”. In this agenda,
we think, health and education are intrinsically important, as argued earlier. [13]
A society that does not provide quality
universal healthcare and universal primary education is “morally repugnant in
this day and age”.